Category: Personal

I remember to have heard that Facebook is not cool anymore and that basically, it is a platform for old people. I have also come across (on Facebook) a figure showing that Facebook is still one of the platforms with more active users. Sorry, but I can’t remember who posted it, so I can’t put it here. However, if we go to Facebook’s Compay Info website, we can see that it had 1.23 billion daily active users on average for December 2016. Facebook seems to be distant from being a boring social media platform for old people. According to Zephoria, the most common age demographic on Facebook corresponds to people between 24 and 34 years old. Hey, that’s not being old!

I think the job posts feature is important. It is a reminder of how powerful Facebook is. It is a reminder that many of us are hyper-engaged with our mobile devices and screens. When I saw the ad, I could picture looking for a job while they commute back home or take their lunch break. I could picture social media managers considering serious strategies to make a company’s website look more solid so that any person will take its job posts seriously.

I think it is so interesting to see how any “screen connected to the internet” becomes a potential door for Facebook to become part of our everyday lives.

Have you seen videos from movies or cartoons showing that our future is living in a VR society? Well, have you noticed that we’re there already? Facebook is that VR society! We might not end up wearing VR headsets 24/7, but many of us are pretty trained to deal with a real life and a cyber life in parallel. Facebook is our virtual society in which commerce, professional development, and human relationships are being constantly redefined, add-on after after-on, version after version.

The ad might look naive. But, again, it is a reminder that Facebook is the social media par excellence. Sometimes, it could look like nothing of what we do on Facebook cares or matters in the real world. However, we keep going back to it. We seem to be ok with the idea of virtualizing business, activism, education, and of course, friendship on that humongous virtual world called Facebook.

It’s been a while since I have uploaded lectures slides on SlideShare. Here are some of the presentations that I have made for lecturing human-computer interaction and visual design for user experience. They are a sample of the themes I have taught at Indiana University Bloomington. However, I do hope you enjoy the slides and find them useful 🙂

Guest lecture for INFO-I 300. Instructor: Gopinaath Kannabiran.

This is a personal post about online resources that talk about conducting research. I expect this list to be organic, and this is for me to not forget while I’m working on my (HCI + design) dissertation. However, I hope it’s helpful for you too!

Please, if you know about a cool resource that needs to be added to this list, let me know! I’m @omitzec on Twitter!

Later, I mentioned in facebook that using my profile picture for the “Discover Weekly” album is a little bit scary. Moreover, I tweeted that although Artificial Intelligence (AI) could be the next big thing in UI/UX design, we shouldn’t forget taking care of the execution, the how, the form — By the way, this somehow sarcastic since tweets before I was arguing that just paying attention to the looks leads to a poor understanding of what design is (after watching the “Why Design Matters” video).

Later, someone asked me on Facebook to explain what I was meaning of my post and provide an example of how the design could be “better.” This person argued that such a design decision helps to “merge” the self and (his/her) music. I think he’s a good point. However, to me, this design decision was a shocking micro-experience with Spotify. Below, I re-write what I posted on Facebook.

The concept of agency came to my mind when I opened Spotify and saw my profile picture being used as the cover for the “Discover Weekly” album. I think it’s great to like or “plus” a song, and thus to think that I decide what music/genre I like and want to listen. From my perspective, this provides a feeling of empowerment to the user. However, I lost that feeling of agency or empowerment when I saw my profile picture. Setting the music on Spotify is part of my work routine and I was not expecting to find something like that today! Seeing “myself” as an album cover made me feel that I became a thing, an interface component; that Spotify had objectified me, transformed me in another interface component. The idea of being de-humanized crossed my mind. I know it’d sound too dramatic, but coming across this UI change provided me an example or situation wherein micro experiences are important. It’s interesting to see how just a little thing provides an element of surprise that lasts just a little bit! A micro-moment that affected my UX with respect to Spotify for the whole day today! I have to acknowledge, nevertheless, that I might be too sensitive since I’m trying to understand how these ideas of user experience, phenomenology, persuasion and rhetoric, identification and rhetoric, and denotation and connotation work in interfaces.

And about my proposal of making this UI change better, first, I have to say that I wouldn’t argue for “better.” A less shocking transition, perhaps. As I commented on FB, Spotify could have introduced me this idea of the “Discover Weekly” in a more ludic way. As it occurs when Spotify doesn’t allow you to interact with the interface and you have to wait seconds to see an ad, one possibility would be having a similar dynamics. Showing this concept and probably letting the user picking the album cover. Once set, it fades away.

Of course, there is nothing wrong or bad with that design decision for the Spotify’s interface. I’d like to emphasize that. Perhaps, this idea of the profile-album-cover has been evaluated with good results. Possibly, I don’t express the archetypical user’s desires for this case (functionality and part of the interface). Perhaps, a later evaluation will come, and a different proposal will be implemented. That’s the way design is. However, I’d emphasize that the capability of implementing smart functions in a system is just a part of the UI/UX design.

In the paper “The Rhetorical Situation,” Bitzer (1992) claims that rhetoricians don’t treat the formal aspects of the type of situation in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse. In the same text, he remarks,

“Each reader probably can recall a specific time and place when there was opportunity to speak on some urgent matter, and after the opportunity was gone he created in private thought, the speech he should have uttered earlier in the situation.”

I really enjoyed that quote. After reading it, one of the things that came to my mind was social media. A couple of times, I’ve considered venting what happens in my mind after facing a situation like the one above. I censor myself and decide not to post anything most of the times, though. Sometimes, I think it’s the “heat” of the moment. Sometimes, I think I need to think things better. Sometimes, I simply forget what I wanted to “conjecture” from that situation.

Later, I’ve seen some Facebook friend’s venting what they think or feel regarding everyday situations. I’ve always wondered, why aren’t they open to say things out loud? Recently, I noted that one of my closest friends posted, “sad.” Of course, I went to check the comments and no response (at that moment) about the reason of being sad. I think I’ve done something similar a couple of times, as well. Not putting just “sad,” but expressing indirectly how I feel towards a certain person, thing or situation. However, externalizing thought was the key thing that I needed: to express it, to make it real.

The Bitzer’s quote made think that, somehow, social media is not strong enough sometimes to encourage the user to express her thoughts. In other words, to avoid self-censorship.Notwithstanding, when we don’t care (or perhaps, we care too much), social media allows to throw what we think in a easy and quick way. I wonder,

what is the difference between throwing a “second-chance-to-argue” “private” thought and other forms of self-expression? For example, a graffiti.

Why is it safe sometimes to externalize that type of thought or inner conversation in social media? When is not it?

Where do we learn such awareness? Does that awareness follow or go against the free of speech in social media?

I don’t really know.

What do you think? Are you having a conversation in private thought already?

As part of the course INFO-I300: Human-Computer Interaction Design in Indiana University, I’ve created a small tutorial about sketchnoting. This is the first time that I write down the rationale for the way in which I take notes. It was an insightful and interesting exercise. My quick insights are:

Sketchnoting helps to organize and synthesize information

Sketchnoting helps to develop metaphorical thinking

Sketchnoting helps to develop a personal visual coding for information

Tools are important (e.g., needle point marker, brush tip marker and good quality sketchbook)

Drawing skills are not that relevant. Notes should make sense to you first.

Consistency is a key aspect for sketchnoting

Based on my experience, the steps for good sketchnoting are:

Listen

Filter

Write down

Code visually

Relate content

I hope the tutorial shown below can be help you for anyone interested in sketchnoting.

It’s been a half year since Google released Material Design. I still see it as a great strategy to bring a vocabulary to designers and users for understanding how UIs work. From that design framework, cards have caught my attention from the first time. I always wonder, are cards about UX or are they really about information design?

Google Now’s available cards

Probably, the first card I saw corresponds to the weather card in a web browser, the one that appears when you google about the weather. However, the first time I paid attention to a card was in a plane. I remember seeing a clean and well organized information about my flight in a little box in my phone. Google knew about my flight and it delivered enough information for me to be aware about my flight status. I got very excited, honestly. The first thing that came to my mind was: this is information design!

If we think of physical cards, Google’s cards seem to be limited in terms of interaction. In many Google interfaces, cards don’t flip or move. Static information is mostly presented on one face of the card. However, no fancy interactions are necessary to make a card effective. The effectiveness of card relies on the quality of the information that it presents. In that regard, knowing how to design the content, the information becomes important. Visual design principles like hierarchy, contrast and rhythm are necessary for the synthesis of information. Therefore, theUX becomes into a matter of information design. We designers need to remember that the how and why of compositionexpressed through several skills and theories related to design—including rhetoric—matter for the design of technology.

Because my research is related to user interfaces, I thought it’d be a nice idea to create a Pinterest board in order to start collecting UI/UX samples. Nevertheless, colleagues have showed me this cool UI pattern libraries, whose content is great for both practitioners and researchers. Therefore, I’ll use this post to create a list for these online libraries. In case you know about a patterns library to add, please, let me know, or feel free to post its URL below. Thanks in advance!

One of the key challenges of being involved in a humanities & design-oriented perspective of Human-Computer Interaction is defining what design (or Design) is. I think that having an operational definition for Design is healthy. It is not only about divagating, philosophizing, or making the word Design to look more scientific—this is, to convert it into something observable and measurable within a certain space, which has its own axioms and laws. It’s also about understanding what being a designer—in a professional sense—means. What’s an Experience Designer? An Interaction Designer? Is it different from an Information Architect? Isn’t a UI Designer an Experience Designer? Coming up with a single answer it’s not an easy task nonetheless. However, thoughts and words are there to shape and play with reality, and hence to understand our human constructions better. So, below I present a quick definition of what design is.

Design is the conjunction of problem framing, externalization and materialization, and communication.

Design understood as the conjunction of problem framing, externalization and materialization, and communication.

These are my simple approaches to each of these dimensions:

Problem Framing

The designer should decompose the design situation (i.e., analysis) in order to understand it, and make a connection about how the current context, current needs, and current users are related to her past projects and personal experiences (i.e., abduction). Nevertheless, I think that separating problem framing from the other two dimensions during a design process is impossible. If so, we’re not talking about Design. We might be talking about problem solving only.

Externalization and Materialization

A design process cannot escape from representation. The rationale behind the problem framing, and hence the design solution must be externalized, communicated, instantiated. In this regard, the designer should find the means to support her argument. Her understanding of how to synthesize information or how to play with the materials is relevant to make a connection with the client, users, stakeholders, and also with herself.

Communication

The designer creates communication pieces, messages. This is evident in terms of the design outcome and the deliverables by which a designer supports her arguments. These are closely related to the dimension of externalization and materialization. Moreover, every design project entails people interacting. Design projects of any size will imply, at least, a relation between a designer, a client, and user. Part of the design process is to balance this relation. Perspectives, values, interests, and even whims take part in design processes. Therefore, the designer should employ communication skills to play the role of mediator, and understand how she, as a person, in combination with the messages she creates, will achieve that balance.

So far, this operational definition helps me to understand design in a simple way. Furthermore, it also helps me to understand the role of experience designers as rhetoricians; and idea I’m still developing as part of HCI research agenda.

Note: Thanks to Jordan and Marty for the conversations about [design/Design/designing]. I would bet this definition will evolve.

One interesting thing about social media is that users can notice behavioral trends about themselves. We can see how our timelines are affected by major events such as the Oscars Ceremony Award or the World Cup. Not only we get retweets and shares, but also new content is generated. Either unpublished or recycled. Pictures, videos, and memes. They’re everywhere within social media. However, as any organism, information gets born,grows, and eventually, it fades out.

Do you remember how popular selfies got after the Ellen DeGeneres’ selfie at the Oscars? Selfies has been part of Facebook, but definitely got burst after her picture. Selfies then started to become annoying. It seems that Instagram and the use of its filters have gone in the same direction. Also, we can add to the list the whining through social media, or the flood of cute cats pictures. On the other hand, it seems now that one function of social media is complementing Google, since their users are now asking about things in order to inform their decisions. Also we can note that social media is becoming an informal marketplace. Therefore, we can see social media as an interface in which multiple contexts affect themselves through the generation, modification, exchange, propagation and eradication of information. Of course, all these actions have an impact back to those contexts. They affect the real world.

The social media and the real world altogether affect the former, at least in terms of content and the usage of such content. Trends are consequence of these user-driveninformation management. And also, users kill those trends eventually, regardless of the actual agency they are supposed to have. Yet, social media, by means of current massive content in each of these contexts, dictates what is on fashion. And eventually when such massive content will not be in fashion anymore. It’s just like the comic strip by the Oatmeal shown below. No one likes selfies (now) (?).

What does this mean, and why do we need to care? There’s no simple answer whatsoever. That’s why many people try to understand the related phenomena from different perspectives, including HCI and Design. However, I really enjoy the idea of seeing that information is alive. It’s somehow organic. We can see how we apparently affect social media content, and how social media content affect us, and hence the real world. The trends have rhetorical implications for us. The Facebook that will be experienced in USA this 4th of July, because of the Independence Day, won’t be the same as the Facebook experienced in Brazil whilst the World Cup keeps going. Our understanding of the world, what shapes our culture, and what modifies our values are subject to this creation and dead of information. And still, I cannot avoid questioning myself, what’s our role, as users, in this phenomenon?

If you want to know how this phenomenon could be related with design, or user experience design, my colleague Azadeh Nematzadeh and I recently presented a paper in the Design Research Society Conference 2014 about some theoretical concepts by which we try to explain this connection. Please, give the paper a look. Thanks!